Australia apologizes to natives on live TV

Aboriginal families were forced apart under old policies

Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press

Published
4:00 am PST, Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Aborigines organized breakfast barbecues in the Outback, schools held assemblies and giant TV screens went up in state capitals Wednesday as Australians watched a live broadcast of their government apologizing for policies that degraded its indigenous people.

In a historic parliamentary vote that supporters said would open a new chapter in race relations, lawmakers unanimously adopted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's motion on behalf of all Australians.

"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," Rudd said in Parliament, reading from the motion.

Aborigines remain the country's poorest and most disadvantaged group, and Rudd has made improving their lives one of his government's top priorities.

As part of that campaign, Aborigines were invited for the first time to give a traditional welcome Tuesday at the official opening of the Parliament session - symbolic recognition that the land on which the capital was built was taken from Aborigines without compensation.

The apology is directed at tens of thousands of Aborigines who were forcibly taken from their families as children under now abandoned assimilation policies.

"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," the apology motion says.

"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

"And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."

The reading of Australia's apology and the parliamentary vote was broadcast nationally, and people across the country watched, from the Outback breakfasts to the school assemblies.

More than 1,000 people gathered at two giants screens outside Parliament House watched Rudd's speech in silence, many waving Australian and Aboriginal flags. Applause broke out occasionally, but mostly they listened intently.

"It's great to get behind what the government's trying to do; bring black and white Australians together," said William Murray, a nonindigenous 17-year-old student who traveled for four hours by bus from Sydney to witness the occasion.

"It's really good everyone realizes now they did a bad job in the old days and the apology is really good," Johnson said.

"This is a historic day," said Tom Calma, who was selected by Stolen Generations organizations to give a formal response to the apology. "Today our leaders across the political spectrum have chosen dignity, hope and respect as the guiding principles for the relationship with our nation's first people."

The apology ended years of divisive debate and a decade of refusals by the previous conservative government that lost November's elections.

It places Australia among a handful of nations that have offered official apologies to oppressed minorities, including Canada's 1998 apology to its native peoples, South Africa's 1992 expression of regret for apartheid and the U.S. Congress' 1988 law apologizing to Japanese Americans for their internment during World War II.

In a speech urging lawmakers to support the motion, Rudd also offered an apology on behalf of the government. "As prime minister of Australia, I am sorry," he said. "On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry. ... I offer you this apology without qualification."

Rudd received a standing ovation from lawmakers and from scores of Aborigines and other dignitaries who were invited to Parliament to witness the event. Many wiped away tears as Rudd spoke.